


Reached For Her Hand

by Osrio



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Handholding, Male Byleth needs more love, Male My Unit | Byleth, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:15:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23304493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Osrio/pseuds/Osrio
Summary: In which Edelgard has a chat with her Professor five years in the making.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	Reached For Her Hand

It had been bothering her for years.  
  
Edelgard Von Hresvelg can be called many things; conqueror, sinner, calculating, all that and more. Among all those descriptors however, you would never find something like “unprepared”. And why would you? For years, even stretching back into her prepubescent days, she had plotted, rose and strengthened herself for the path ahead, a path that would be fraught with trauma, peril and death.   
  
All three of which Edelgard was more than familiar with.   
  
The faces of her family contorting in pain, the sneering auras of the men and women behind those horrible masks, all would be etched into her memory until the day she died. That was what gave her the strength to do what must be done, to give Foldan the new dawn it truly deserved.   
  
So why was such a matter as this bothering the Emperor of Flame?   
  
Byleth Eisner, the Ashen Demon, son of the late Jeralt Eisner and just half a decade ago her professor at the Officer’s Academy. Her first impressions had been a bit hazy, given the rather frantic manner in which they met, yet that changed within a matter of days as he was chosen to lead the Black Eagles.   
  
Despite his inexperience as a professor, Byleth quickly rose to the challenge, leading them through thick and thin, even going out of his way to actually talk to Edelgard. He was there to save her from her own damnable nightmares and against her better judgement, she revealed to her professor the legacy built on the corpses and sanity of her family, her own Crest of Flames.   
  
But as much as she could trust her professor, there was much she simply couldn’t say, especially at the academy.   
  
Namely with those damnable puppet masters, “Those Who Slither In The Dark”, as Hubert called them. Edelgard was no fool, they were most definitely behind what happened to her and her family years ago, yet she still required their vast resources in order to achieve her ambitions.   
  
Yet it didn’t stop Edelgard from hating both them and herself for having to stoop so low as to work with them.   
  
Following the death of Jeralt, Edelgard thought that would be it. Carefully confiding with Byleth her secrets, her trauma, the sense of trust she had built with him, this should have been the breaking point, especially as she broke into the Holy Tomb, armed to the teeth, and revealed that she was the Flame Emperor. Edelgard wouldn’t have blamed Byleth for striking her down there or then.   
  
Yet not even she could have predicted Byleth protecting her from Rhea, even raising her sword at Rhea.   
  
Even now, five years later, Edelgard still didn’t understand. Do not mistake her, she was forever grateful that her professor had chosen to side with her, but in Edelgard’s mind, it simply didn’t make any sense.   
  
Hence why she was here now, outside of Byleth’s old room from their days at the academy near the door. She had been standing here for nearly five minutes now, trying to find it within herself to reach out and knock on his door.   
  
How pathetic. She was Emperor of the Adrestian Empire, leading a rebellion against what felt like the entire world itself and here she was, unable to simply knock on a door.   
  
Edelgard took two deep breaths, trying in vain to calm her nerves before finally knocking on the door twice with her knuckles.   
  
“Come in,” came the voice of Byleth. Edelgard followed suit, entering the small abode of her professor, her eyes fixed on his person.   
  
Byleth had changed very little in half a decade, in fact it seemed as if the man hadn’t aged a day. The same face, the same hair, everything about Byleth had been left untouched by the ravages of war or time. Edelgard… wished she could say the same of her.   
  
“Good evening Professor. I apologize for interrupting you at this hour, but I was hoping you’d have a moment to talk?”, Edelgard inquired, a hand on her hip as Byleth rose from his chair. Documents and maps littered the table, no doubt for Edelgard’s eventual campaign against the Alliance.   
  
“Edelgard, I always have time for you. Please, what’s on your mind?”, her professor smiled. At the beginning of her school year, Edelgard would’ve thought it odd to see Byleth smile at all. Now? Now his smile was akin to that of the sun. That smile was more than enough to warm what was once Edelgard’s frozen heart.   
  
“I shall… attempt to keep this brief. This has to do with five years ago, during the incident in the Holy Tomb,”, Edelgard said as Byleth continued to listen. He nodded, encouraging her to go on.   
  
“Please do not take this the wrong way Professor Byleth, words cannot express the gratitude I have for you not only sparing me, but joining my cause. Yet…”, Edelgard trailed off, causing Byleth to raise an eyebrow.   
  
“Yet…?”   
  
“...I cannot understand exactly why you chose to protect me. I am not a woman who is free from mistakes or death. I have blood on my hands, I attacked my classmates in the Holy Tomb, and while I did not want to do so, I came fully committed to kill. With all of that in mind… why? Why did you choose me?”   
  
Byleth frowned a bit, his arms folded as he pondered Edelgard’s question. Finally, he spoke.   
  
“Because you needed someone, and I needed you.”   
  
Now it was Edelgard’s turn to raise an eyebrow.   
  
“Forgive me Professor, but I do not understand.”   
  
Byleth gestured for Edelgard to sit in his chair, whilst he walked to his bed and sat down. His face was his more usual "unreadable" expression of utter calm and neutrality. Truth be told, it had always slightly unnerved Edelgard.  
  
“Edelgard, when we met five years ago in Remire, I could barely even feel emotion. You know of my former moniker, yes? The Ashen Demon. All I knew as an adolescent was the life of a mercenary. I hated that name, it made me feel less like a human and more like a tool. But I knew very little else outside of that life. Do you know when I first took a man’s life, Edelgard? When I was fifteen.”   
  
A brief pause, then he continued.   
  
“Then I was hired as a professor and I chose your house. I had very few ideas of what to expect nor of what to do. You were there for my first day, it was a disaster.”   
  
Against her better judgement, Edelgard couldn’t help but chuckle. Byleth was ill prepared for his profession at first and it showed. Even Lindhardt couldn’t help but spare a few moments to chuckle at the former mercenary’s obvious awkwardness in the classroom. Everything from the wrong lecture notes to trying to teach Bernadetta of all people how to use axes.   
  
“Indeed. But professor, I still don’t quite understand…”, she trailed off again before Byleth continued.   
  
“It was a bit slow at first… I could lead you all on a battlefield, that was second nature. But to give you all the skills and abilities you would need to make something of yourselves, that was far more difficult.”   
  
Byleth’s face soon formed that warm smile that Edelgard felt simply helpless against.   
  
“But eventually things just… clicked. Little by little, as I taught you all everything I had to teach and bonded with you all, I began to feel something more than indifference or stoicism. Things like happiness, anger, sorrow, my time with you all began to fill the pieces that should’ve been there already.”   
  
“But it wasn’t just being a teacher that influenced me. It was _you_ Edelgard,” Byleth stated, looking Edelgard square in the eyes. Edelgard couldn’t hide a shocked expression, nor her blush.   
  
“M-Me?”, she stammered, losing her composure for just a moment.   
  
“When you told me of your past, of what those monsters did to not just you but your entire family, something began to stir inside me. You trusted me enough to confide your fears, your nightmares. That’s how I knew I wanted to walk with you Edelgard, to repay that same amount of trust you showed in me.”   
  
Edelgard was speechless. It took her a good few seconds before she could even try speaking again.   
  
“Professor… I…”, Edelgard tried to speak, but the words simply didn’t come out. They refused to come out.   
  
“Edelgard…”, he said simply, waking over and taking her gloved hand into his. “You helped me become more than just a tool. And that’s why I’ll stand with you, no matter what comes.”   
  
Tears. Edelgard could feel pathetic tears rolling down her cheeks. What was wrong with her, showing such weakness in front of Byleth? It was unbecoming for a woman like her.   
  
But there she was anyway.   
  
“But Professor… What if I’m not worthy of such trust? What if this war of mine ends in only the suffering of our comrades and you? What if the world refuses to change, no matter how hard I try? Five years later, and we haven’t made any progress in this war,” she said, though really it was more like she was telling herself this.   
  
“There’s a rule that father once taught me. “Don’t allow yourself to be consumed by the hypothetical, especially in the middle of a fight. Focus on the here and now.” Edelgard, it’s only natural to doubt yourself even a little bit at some point, you’re only human after all. But you can’t allow yourself to think that this will end badly. You’ve already come this far. For the sake of those who have given their lives for your cause, and for those lives still yet to be born, we must see this through. And we will.”   
  
He was right… As always, the Professor was correct. Even five years later, when their peaceful school lives had come to an end, there was still more he had left to teach.   
  
Edelgard smiled, wiping away the tears with her free hand.   
  
“Yes… of course. Please forgive me, my teacher. I suppose I just needed to get such doubts off my chest,” she smiled. It wasn’t just that a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, Edelgard felt reenergized, her morale could practically reach the heavens.   
  
Frankly she wouldn’t know what to do if Byleth wasn’t here with her.   
  
Edelgard looked down and found that she was still clasping onto Byleth’s right hand. A faint blush appeared on her face, along with her smile.   
  
“Professor… have your hands always been so warm?”, she chuckled. Gods, now she felt like a mere child again. But this time she had someone she could trust wholeheartedly, someone she could stand proud with.   
  
It was a feeling that she could treasure, for as many days as she had remaining.   
  
“Well, I’d be most worried if my hands had gone cold,”, Byleth chuckled back, before finally allowing Edelgard her hand back. She looked to the hand that Byleth had just been holding, and clenched it.   
  
“This trust you have shown in me Professor? I promise I will repay it tenfold. Together, we and the Black Eagles shall carve our way to a new dawn for Fodlan’s future. I only ask that you stay at my side until that day.”   
  
Byleth smiled once more, nodding. “I wouldn’t have it any other way Edelgard.”   
  
With a nod, Edelgard looked outside, the sun had long since set, and sadly Edelgard still had much to do before she could return to sleep. Marches, tactics and much more would be required before they were ready to set out to invade Alliance territory.   
  
“I do wish I could stay Professor, but I do have business to attend to before I retire for the night. I wish you the best of dreams,” Edelgard said, that wish being mainly for him and not her. She knew full well she’d never again have dreams that didn’t involve those damnable experiments.   
  
“Please don’t overwork yourself Edelgard, you know I or any of the other Eagles will be more than happy to assist. But have a peaceful night regardless.”   
  
Edelgard nodded, turning to the door and leaving Byleth’s room as a deep sigh of relief exited her mouth. This… had been easily the best she had felt ever since Byleth had been found. A weight on her soul had been lifted, and now she could move forward without hesitation.   
  
For her siblings, her father, her friends and her Professor, Edelgard Von Hresvelg refused to fail.

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I have my Fates project to work on, but I couldn't resist. Male Byleth/Edelgard forever, I will die on this ship goddamn it. 
> 
> Come join our Discord server, we have plenty of friendly faces! https://discord .gg/9XG3U7a


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